Ruben Amaro Is 'Fine' With Halladay Keeping Shoulder Pain Quiet
By Spike Eskin
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Roy Halladay has a doctor's appointment on Tuesday that may determine the rest of his career, or lack thereof. After pitching with shoulder discomfort for the last two weeks, he will get that shoulder checked out, with the hopes they find something, and find something fixable.
Halladay said he first felt the discomfort in his shoulder about two weeks ago, but didn't say anything because he believed it to be general soreness due to pitching the previous night. Halladay pitched twice after feeling the pain in his shoulder, and pitched poorly.
General manager Ruben Amaro doesn't seem to concerned that he wasn't made aware of Halladay's situation prior to Sunday's game.
"I'm fine with it," Amaro told 94WIP's Rob Ellis on Monday. "He didn't---he wants to pitch, he wants to perform. I think if he felt he couldn't perform he would have shut himself down. I think he's got enough respect for me and Charlie and our medical people, that if he felt it was truly serious that he would let us know."
LISTEN: Rob Ellis interviews Ruben Amaro Jr.
He came out of the game frankly because he stunk, not necessarily because he was hurt. The time that I found that he was feeling discomfort was after he was out of the game."
It's clear that Halladay thought he could pitch through the pain. It's also clear, given the results, that he can't.
"Well, I talked to Roy since then about that and basically what he told me was that he did feel some discomfort after that Pittsburgh start, went through his normal prehab and preparation to pitch Cleveland and then actually had a very good---after he pitched that game in Cleveland, he didn't pitch very well, while he had some discomfort he still ended up throwing a very good bullpen and felt like he was going to be prepared to come back and pitch better in his last start. While he had some discomfort it wasn't something that he didn't feel was debilitating, he just wasn't sure what it was," Amaro said. "He's the kind of a guy that wants to pitch, he's not gonna make excuses for not pitching. He wants to contribute."
When Charlie Manuel spoke immediately after Sunday's game, he was unaware that Halladay was hurt. Amaro explained the timeline during the game, and why Manuel didn't know.
" [Halladay] had talked to me during the course of the game," Amaro said. "We did not have a doctor, at the time, seeing him. Doctor [Michael] Ciccotti came back---we wanted to get [Phillies head physician] Dr. Ciccotti back, we had one of his fellows there. This was important enough to get Dr. Ciccotti back to the ballpark to see him and in the course of that time was when he was examining. So Charlie comes back, didn't really have much information at all about what the status was on Roy, and that was the reason Charlie wasn't really briefed because we didn't really have the information yet and we were in the process of getting the rest of the information from Dr. Ciccotti."
Joe Savery took Roy Halladay's place on the roster for now, but the Phillies appear undecided about who will take Halladay's spot in the rotation. One guy it won't be, is stand-out Jesse Biddle.
"He's a young kid. He's a young kid who I think needs to pitch," Amaro said. "He's going to be a very good starting pitcher in the big leagues. But he's got a lot of things to work on yet, even though he can strike out people right now, that's not what pitching is about. It's about the total package and when he's ready to do that and he's ready to be a major league pitcher for the Phillies, he'll be here in Philadelphia, but he's not one of those guys you want to bounce around. We want him to come to Philadelphia and stay in Philadelphia for as long as possible. We'll give him all the opportunities to iron out everything he needs to do to prepare himself to be a big league pitcher."
